AEA President Interview with KTHV - Race to the Top

AEA President Donna Morey was featured in KTHV Channel 11's top evening news story on Wednesday, Sept. 2.  The story discussed President Barack Obama's Race to the Top initiative, and how it will affect public schools in Arkansas.

The Race to the Top, a competition for $4.35 billion in federal grants for education funding, was established by President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to help drive education reform, improve school achievement and adopt internationally recognized high standards of learning.

Morey said that the AEA agrees with the Obama administration that the status quo is no longer acceptable, and that public education must be transformed. But as Morey told KTHV, AEA believes that some of the proposed criteria should be reevaluated. "Teachers should be evaluated on multiple criteria, not just one," Morey said when asked about linking student testing to teachers' evaluations. "We are over-testing kids, and we feel like students and teachers are more than a single test score."

Morey also said that AEA would like to see less emphasis placed on establishing charter schools. "We don't think they are the silver bullet," she said. She noted that these schools have often produced lower achievement gains than traditional district-run public schools. On the other hand, magnet schools have proven very effective in the Pulaski County area.

AEA and other education stakeholders in the state have been invited by the Arkansas Department of Education to participate in discussions on what the Arkansas application for Race to the Top should focus on, once the final Race to the Top rules are in place and applications become available.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=90285
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